Defining Kickstarter Isn’t As Easy As You’d Think

Illustration: Brown Bird Design

A) A crowdsourcing platform that allows creative types, wunderkinder, and humanitarians to pitch world-changing projects to potential microfunders. (See: Incident in New Baghdad, an Academy Award-nominated documentary about a US attack on Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists; also Safecast, a nonprofit sensor network that enables people to share and map radiation measurements, funded in the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan.)

B) A way for would-be entrepreneurs to rake in a lot of money for a new idea, fail to make said idea, and then just keep the pile of money they’re sitting on—or have already spent. (See: Mythic, a faux action game by a fake studio that raised nearly $5,000 before it got shut down, or Eyez, HD-video-recording glasses that amassed $343,415 from more than 2,000 backers only to miss its ship date by, oh, well over a year and counting.)

C) An opportunity for your nutty friends to realize their nutty dreams. (See: that life-size RoboCop statue in Detroit, the portable drinking game table called puzzle pong, or the Guinness-certified world’s largest jockstrap.)